226 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSCA. 



snail on the dinner table at Vienna; they were served 

 up plain, boiled in their shells, or stuffed with force- 

 meat. At Naples, snails are generally kept in bran 

 for a week or two, or for two or three days, before 

 they are considered good for the table. They live on 

 the bran, which is said to fatten them. 



When first the snails are gathered from the hedges, 

 &c, it is a necessary precaution to starve them for a 

 few days, and not to eat them at once, as they feed on 

 poisonous plants, such as the deadly nightshade, poppy, 

 datura, &c. ; cases of poisoning by snails having oc- 

 curred where they had been gathered near, or had fed 

 upon these noxious plants. 



It is a mistake to suppose that the only snails used 

 as food are the Helix pomatia and Helix aspersa.* 

 These are naturally preferred on account of their larger 

 size, which makes them less troublesome to eat ; but 

 a variety of small kinds of snails, nineteen species in 

 all, including those above mentioned, are also em- 

 ployed in cookery on the Continent, and there is no 

 reason why they should not be as good as the others, 

 nor is there any reason why we should not use snails, 

 and many other molluscous animals, which we now 

 throw aside, but which are doubtless quite as palatable 

 and as wholesome as other kinds which our prejudices 

 permit us to indulge in. 



M. A. Docteur Ebrard, in his f Des Escargots, au 

 point de vue de Y Alimentation, de la Viticulture, et de 

 l'Honiculture,' gives an interesting account of the use 



* Helix aspersa has a variety of names in France, and in the north 

 it is called Colimaqon, Jardiniere, and Aspergille ; at Montpellier, 

 Caraguolo; in Bordelais, Caguuille, Li maou, and Limat ; in Provence, 

 Escargit, and Eseourgol ; at Avignon, Caragoou and Contar; Banarut 

 at Aries ; and Bajaina at tirasai. — Dr. Ebrard. 



